Starshine Girl
by fabricated fantasies
Summary: His name lingers in the air, and it's electric, and the stars in her eyes burnburnburn until he feels like he's aflame. -— TeddyLucy


_This was written for limegreenrocks' "crack pairings" challenge on the HPFC._

_For Zhie (Renzhie) for her encouragement to write this fic, and beta-ing it for me._

**she's always been a dreamer**

you're from a whole other world

a different dimension

you open my eyes

_-E.T, Katy Perry_

He sees her looking at the stars, and he knows she's a dreamer.

She looks the type, all messy blonde hair and eyes of sparkling green-blue, a thin waif of a girl who can fly through the clouds past his out-stretched fingertips.

But dreamers have to live their dreams, don't they?

* * *

Teddy's a boy like any other; headstrong, stubborn, and a secret romantic at heart.

He wants to fall in love, get married, have kids and live happily-ever-after. He wants a life of white pickets fences and romantic dances under the stars.

So when he finds himself staring at the 'oddity' of the Weasley family, he brings up memories of a young blonde-haired girl curled up on the couch, her eyes blurring as she reads. And another of Lucy, slightly older this time, gazing longingly out the window at the stars.

_You saw her grow up, and she's still just a kid. Only fifteen. She's too young for you,_ he tells himself.

But when she looks up at him through pale lashes, ocean eyes startling against her pale freckled skin, he can't help but be drawn to her. It's not quite love (not yet), it's more… _fascination._

_Yes, fascination_, he decides_, and nothing more._

He leaves the Weasleys' in a hurry, bidding goodbye to Harry and Ginny, and of course all the cousins, giving a wink at Victoire as he leaves.

He doesn't see Roxanne and Lily turn excitedly to each other, or the shadow of pain pass across Lucy's face.

He can't stop himself from reaching for a quill and some parchment the minute he reaches the shabby flat he's living in. He's always been impulsive like that.

* * *

He's staring at the blank parchment, and he can't think of anything to say. He's on the verge of an idea, and he starts to write it down, his heart beating _oh so _fast, when a vision of her wide blue eyes swirls in his mind.

His heart slows down so quickly he could have sworn it stopped.

But it's all going too quickly, he feels. A shred of interest in the fairy-like girl on the couch has rapidly become complete enthrallment. And he doesn't know when it's going to end, or even if he wants it to.

His white picket fence life never took this strange magnetism into account, though he's always had a fascination with dreamers.

A phrase, a fragment of song drifts into his head as he thinks, the remnants of a lullaby he thinks his mother sang to him before she died.

" _If you want to catch a star then follow me; the fairy ring is closing all too soon, you see…"_

As inspiration strikes, he rushes to scribble it down in his messy, boyish handwriting, ink flying everywhere in his haste to write it down.

_Dear Lucy…_

It is days before he receives a reply, and then it is only a few lines written in the prettiest handwriting he has ever seen.

_Dear Teddy,_

_I believe that "fairy" is correctly spelt "faerie". Though the poem is very pretty._

_Lucy_

* * *

It's James' birthday, and amidst pranks and presents Teddy searches for a girl who already tugs on his heartstrings.

He's talking to Lily and Roxanne when he glimpses a flash of blonde hair through the large kitchen window. He walks quickly out the door, leaving behind two pairs of mystified, offended eyes.

She's sitting on the swing in the backyard, moonlight washing over her face, casting it in an unearthly light. Her white lace dress is draped around her, and he thinks that she looks like an angel. A soft wind blows and musses her hair even more, and he breathes a sigh as she finally turns to look at him.

"Teddy," she says, and her voice is warm and inviting, and he'd give anything to sit beside her and feel that warmth for himself.

She pats the space beside her, and colour lights up his face, making him glad that it is dark enough that she can't see him.

_What is it about her that turns him into a blushing schoolboy? _

They talk late into the night, about everything and nothing, while the stars twinkle fiercely overhead.

"_See, Teddy? That one is Orion, and that's Sirius, the dog star."_

A cloud drifts across the moon, and she looks up at the sudden shadow.

"Moonshine lends the best light, doesn't it?" she remarks to him, and he is captured in her ocean-blue gaze. The other Weasley girls have ice-cold blue eyes, or eyes of melted chocolate, but she is different. She's always been different.

Then suddenly he is watching her retreating figure disappear into the trees without a whisper of a goodbye. She is humming to herself as she walks – floats – into the undergrowth at the back of the Burrow.

_She's always been a dreamer, hasn't she?_

* * *

They meet many times from then on, him chasing his dreams of _her_, and Lucy watching the stars.

She seems to connect with him – he's certainly never seen her speak to anyone else as much. But even as they get closer, the looming clouds cover the stars of this so-called friendship.

_She's too young; she's far too young._

His fascination – _obsession_ - gets worse when she goes back to school. All he has then are her letters that still carry her scent; a strange mixture of pine trees and vanilla. He knows he's becoming pathetic when he lives for her letters, eccentric and muddled as they are.

_Dear Teddy,_

_I found a Plumpie bush yesterday…_

_…The stars were very bright tonight…_

…_Firenze says the future is too confused right now for even the centaurs to see…_

And the last.

…_Wait for me._

_Lucy_

He replied straight away, dripping bright purple ink all over the floor in his haste.

_L –_

_Of course._

_-T _

Once he had sent it with the owl, he sat down to think about her message properly. He hadn't thought about the implication of the letter, but as he thought a notion was taking root in his mind.

Had she meant for him to wait for her in a romantic sense? Half of him begged for the answer to be yes, but the other half was unsure. Was his fascination enough?

He doesn't want to date her, make her love him when _he_ is still unsure. And in that cocky Teddy way, he is sure that he could make her love him.

Because maybe she is everything he ever dreamed (beautiful, smart and full of _life_), but she's fragile, like a snowflake that will melt as soon as he touches it.

* * *

It's finally summer and he rushes to the station to pick her up. She's standing in the corner watching her cousins interact, and her eyes glitter as they alight upon him.

"Teddy." His name lingers in the air, and it's _electric_, and the stars in her eyes burnburn_burn_ until he feels like he's aflame.

"Lucy." After a moment of silence, he continues, "Shall we, my lady?"

She smiles off into the distance; he can only imagine she is thinking of knights in armour on dashing white horses. He's startled when she slips her cold hand into the crook of his arm.

"We shall."

They return to Lucy's house, and he leaves her at the front door, smiling and dropping a kiss into her hair.

_She smells like vanilla, _he thinks.

* * *

He Apparates to his doorstep, and whistles as a muttered _Alohomorous_ opens the door. He pauses mid-whistle, a shocked look on his face.

_He's in love. Or, at least strongly in like. With Lucy. _She isn't just an object of fascination, and a smile from her always makes his day. _The letters…_

She's changed him, as he has changed her. She's blunter, _bolder_, and he's found himself staring off into space just like she always does.

_Scratch __like__, _he thinks. _He's in love._

* * *

He visits her often at 'Uncle' Percy's house and even her overbearing father gives him a approving nod as he walks through the door.

They spend every night outside, under the stars as they twinkle merrily.

"Why do you love the stars so much, Lucy?" he asks one night, her fragile form curled up with his.

"They're always there, even during the day. They move and change, but the stars always shine. So bright. So _beautiful_."

Her voice is breathy, soft, but the conviction in her voice shines through like the stars she loves so much.

_She_ is a star, really, he thinks. A quiet supernova, burning steadily and brightly until it explodes and the star goes dim.

But maybe she'll be the star that keeps on blazing.

* * *

She's staring into space, her dreamy gaze concentrated on the tree opposite them.

"I've never been kissed, you know," she says, her tone light-hearted, with a hint of curiosity.

"Really?" he practically yelps. "I-I mean, I-I don't think it r-really matters, I mean, you're great and…" he stutters. He's never been good with things like this.

"Have you?" she asks, and he nods wordlessly. "What does it feel like? I'd like to know what it feels like."

"I could… show you," he says, his heart beating furiously. "Just to know what it feels like," he adds, and the repetition of her words are _safe_, and he feels like if they say it enough then it won't mean anything.

She leans imperceptibly closer, and he feels his breath catch as he sees a glimpse of her creamy throat.

"Just to know what it feels like," she whispers, her eyes flickering between him and the stars and her breath ghosts over his skin.

"Just to know what it feels like," he agrees, though he's _oh so_ guilty of using her like this.

But it's too tempting to him, he who has loved from afar for so long. It's too tantalizing to imagine feeling her sugar sweet lips against his as her hands twine in his hair.

Then her lips press against his, just for a brief moment. She pulls back and lays her head back down in his lap, before yawning and showing all her teeth. She stretches like a cat before curling back up against his side.

He presses a tender kiss to her hair, and wraps his free arm around her. He loves her best like this; vulnerable and soft, though he loves her no matter what she is like. She will always be his dreamer.

He wants to kiss her again, againagain_again_, and the need overtakes him before he can stop himself. He pushes his chapped lips against her own, and though he feels guilty for stealing this second kiss from her, the way she smiles in her sleep suggests that he is forgiven.

It's wonderful and frustrating at the same time; being in love. And loving Lucy is twice as intoxicating as any other love, at least in his opinion. And maybe loving her is like catching the moon, an almost unattainable notion that taunts him as much as it thrills him.

_He can deal with that._

* * *

It's a few days before he sees her again, and his mind is filled with a thousand questions that all start with _why_.

She's looking at the dark night sky, and he's thinking of a single, cosmic kiss they shared under these self-same stars, when she interrupts his contemplation.

"I think I love you," she says wonderingly, and before he can say anything, she's placed her mouth over his and he can only think of her vanilla flavoured kiss.

"Yes, I definitely think I love you," and she gives one of her ever-so rare laughs that is like a tinkling silver bell.

He rolls her over onto her back and kisses her deeply. Because she's finally seventeen, and they can do what they want; and he feels so free and happy and light from her confession that he thinks maybe he is the one with wings made of dreams.

"I definitely think I love you too."

* * *

Life passes in a blur of kisses and vanilla and starshine, and every day is oh so special because he is with her. When she has to go back to school for the rest of her final year, they just stare into each other's eyes, like in fairytales, and he could swear he can see stars in her eyes.

Then she moves in with him, and he thinks that life can never get any better. It's been three years, and he loves her so much it's like the stars shine only for her.

Grandma Weasley always asks when they are getting married, and sometimes he thinks he'd like to, but the only time he'd ever asked she had looked at him with those ocean-blue eyes and said "Why? We aren't married, and I love you anyway."

So he had acquiesced, and kissed her, throwing away his dreams of a white picket-fence happy-ever -after.

Even dreamers who dance with the stars are still human.

* * *

But she is so ethereal and luminous that he never expected his starshine girl to fall ill. She becomes wan and pale, and he often finds her sitting on the window sill, holding her ever-growing stomach with a blanket wrapped around her as she gazes at the stars.

The stars become her comfort, more so than ever, and they become his comfort too.

He takes her to a Healer, who shakes her head sadly and says that there is nothing they can do. They say she has a rare form of a blood disease they call _Sanguinem Malum_, an illness even wizards cannot cure. They can only count the days.

"_She may not make it to the baby's birth." _

The words pound in his head, over and over and over. He feels lost, and the sudden flashes of pain in his eyes are missed by no-one.

_They can only count the days._

* * *

He decides – _really, she decides_ – to have the baby removed and placed in an incubator of a sorts, so the baby can live and breathe without Lucy. Just in case.

She goes under the procedure, and comes out even more white-faced and shaking, and he knows they don't have much time. He almost wishes it would just be over with, but feels immediately guilty.

He bends close over her hospital bed, and she whispers the words _"Elizabeth Nymphadora" _in his ear before she falls asleep.

* * *

He can feel her changing, growing weaker by the minute, and he's _powerless. _His beautiful dreamer is pulling away from him, and he never wants to let go.

She asks to be laid under the stars, and one by one the family arrives and groups around her. Somehow, they just _know._

She is curled in his arms, and he listens to her even breaths, and for a moment he deludes himself into thinking that she'll be okay. Then she opens her bloodshot eyes, and he looks at her neck where the blood and skin has turned silver from the disease.

"Wait for me," she says, and reaches one frail hand up to stroke his face. Then her arm falls back, and she's gonegone_gone_, and his starshine girl has left him forever.

He lays her gently on the ground, and kneels beside her. He closes her ocean-blue eyes with the reflected stars, and presses a kiss to her hair.

"_Always,"_ he breathes.

Wordlessly, Audrey passes him Elizabeth, and he holds her close, the last piece of Lucy he has left.

And later that night, he stands alone, a child in his arms with brown hair and ocean eyes, and he thinks of the girl who taught him about the stars.


End file.
